“‘In
nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will
focus on privatizing, defunding, and destroying public education in America.’—Randi
Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers.

“‘She has lobbied for
failed schemes, like vouchers—which take away funding and local control from
our public schools—to fund private schools at taxpayers' expense,’ García
continued. ‘These schemes do nothing to help our most-vulnerable students while
they ignore or exacerbate glaring opportunity gaps. She has consistently pushed
a corporate agenda to privatize, de-professionalize, and impose cookie-cutter
solutions to public education. By nominating Betsy DeVos, the Trump
administration has demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works
best for students, parents, educators, and communities.’

“Similarly, American
Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten called
DeVos ‘the most ideological, anti-public education nominee put forward since
President Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education.’ ‘In nominating
DeVos," Weingarten said, ‘Trump makes it loud and clear that his education
policy will focus on privatizing, defunding, and destroying public education in
America.’

“Indeed, Chalkbeat earlier
this week listed
‘a few things we could reasonably surmise from a DeVos pick.’ Among them was
that Trump is now likely to go through with his plan ‘to use
federal funds to encourage states to make school choice available to all
poor students, including through vouchers that allow families to take public
funding to private schools.’

“‘That's exactly what
DeVos has zealously worked to make happen on a state-by-state basis for
decades,’ the outlet wrote. ‘In 2000, she helped get a ballot measure before
Michigan voters that would have enshrined a right to vouchers in the state's
Constitution. After the measure failed, she and her husband formed a political
action committee to support pro-voucher candidates nationally. Less than a
decade later, the group counted
a 121-60 win-loss record.’

“Wealthy DeVos—who
served as head of the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and again
from 2003 to 2005—is ‘a Michigan power broker and major donor to the GOP and
its candidates around the country,’ the Washington
Post reports.
She leads
the American Federation for Children, described
by teacher and education commentator Peter Greene as ‘a dark money group
that works [for] school privatization,’ and is married to Dick DeVos, an heir
to the Amway fortune.

“‘The DeVos family has
been using their deep pockets to influence the Michigan legislature for years
and it looks like they have finally bought their way into a presidential
administration as well,’ Progress Michigan said
in a statement. ‘The DeVos family education plan has been a disaster for
Michigan and we are truly saddened that Trump decided to import their failed
ideas to Washington, D.C.’ Meanwhile, the Post adds, DeVos' brother ‘is Erik
Prince, the founder of Blackwater, one of the most profitable private security
firms during the Iraq War.’

“As Jeremy Scahill,
author of Blackwater:
The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army,wrote
at The Intercept just
last week: ‘The Prince and DeVos families gave the seed money for what came to
be known as the Republican Revolution when Newt Gingrich became House speaker
in 1994 on a far-right platform known as the Contract with America. The Prince
and DeVos clans also invested heavily in a scheme developed by [Focus on the
Family's James] Dobson to engage in back-door lobbying activities by forming 'prayer warrior' networks of people who would call politicians to
advocate for Dobson's religious and political agenda. Instead of lobbying,
which the organization would have been prohibited from doing because of its tax
and legal status, they would claim they were 'praying' for particular
policies.

“‘The Princes
consistently poured money into criminalizing abortion, privatizing education,
blocking gay rights, and other right-wing causes centered around their
interpretation of Christianity. The family, especially Erik, was very close to
Richard Nixon's ‘hatchet man,’ Watergate conspirator Charles ‘Chuck’ Colson.
The author of Nixon's enemies list, Colson was the first person sentenced in
the Watergate scandal, after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in the
investigation of the dirty tricks campaign against Daniel Ellsberg, the
whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Colson
became a born-again Christian before going to prison, and after his release, he
started the Prison Fellowship, which sought to convert prisoners to
Christianity to counter what Colson saw as the Islamic menace in U.S. prisons.
Erik Prince funded this as well and went on prison visits with Colson.’”

3 comments:

Just as her brother has done in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans (yes, New Orleans after Katrina), DeVos will use mercenaries to kill what's left of public education. After all, there is a great deal of private profit to be made by the Corporate Education Industrial Complex.I recently spoke to a few people in their late twenties and thirties who refer to nearby Eastern Florida State College as YouTube University.

Since the actual adjunct instructors receive $20 per semester hour per class (a three credit course is $60 per week before taxes), you can imagine who the teachers are and how much time they spend on anything outside of class. They read the scripted texts aloud and assign chapters, give online tests which are graded online.The people I spoke with are upset with what they know is a sham education. They feel betrayed. They feel going into serious debt for no reason except to show the piece of worthless paper called a diploma.

Please expose the Betsy Vos/Amway billionaire as head of the Department of Education. Her only intent: dismantle the department and make it state-run vouchers for some charters and mostly parochial schools with a good dose of old-time religion being taught to our kids. No separation of church and state. Our tax money--their ideologies. A MUST READ: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/27/already-big-gap-between-trumps-promises-middle-class-and-his-policies

Teacher/Poet/Musician

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